


we're taken apart and thrown to the breeze

by inkwelled



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Author Still In Shock, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Introspection, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Symbolism, They deserved better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-03 21:42:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14578272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkwelled/pseuds/inkwelled
Summary: Peter Quill dies long before his body turns to dust.





	we're taken apart and thrown to the breeze

**Author's Note:**

> title from [ash](https://hellopoetry.com/poem/530069/ash/) by dakota
> 
> !! major spoilers for infinity war - you have been warned !!

Peter Quill dies long before his body turns to dust.  
  


 

He first remembers this hopeless sinking in his chest when a thin, withered hand reached for his but his was on worn plastic. His clothes are scratchy against his neck, the sheets on the bed like a scream against his skin. A tired, ragged voice had called his name until it was drowned out by the flat screeching that tore his mother from him. He remembers his grandfather's arms around him, remembers his throat raw as he screamed and kicked because he was late, too late.

He remembers the ground beneath his feet until it came to meet his cheek and the bright light, bleeding out around the edges and the terror afterwards, drowning out the feelings.

 

 

  
The second time he watched the remnants of a ship float past, a body so peaceful and still floating in the wreckage like an angel. He had traded his mask for her life and the crushing feeling of no air in his lungs and the crystals forming on his skin had been soothed by the sound of her breathing in. He remembers his name being called, Gamora’s body firm beneath his, cheek soft in his hand.

He remembers the soft rasp of his voice, the vulnerable gleam in her eyes, so close and terrified of death and had sworn in that moment to never let it happen again.

 

  
  
The third time he feels that sinking feeling, his father crushes his Walkman between his fingers and declares that the girl is nothing, meaningless. He has already killed his mother, the one person who had loved him without fail. There's a bolt of pure lightning through his chest and all he can do is gasp as it races through him, tearing the light and soul from his bones. He remembers Gamora's scream of his name, her arm around his, the ripping feeling in his chest when she was gone.

He remembers her scream as she topples over the edge, remembers reaching for her like a dying man for salvation and his heart beat in his throat.

 

  
  
He doesn't expect the fourth time. Space is cold and infinite around him and the feeling doesn't come quickly, but like an old friend. He sits back, accepts his fate, and then he's out in the emptiness of space, all alone, clutching a body that no longer breathes and this time, there's nothing he can do. His father’s body - his _real_ father’s body - is stiff next to his own and his throat is raw and ragged in a way he doesn’t remember in a long time. He clutches at a jacket so familiar his chest aches.  
  
Is this how Gamora felt the first time? This hopelessness, this knowledge nothing can be done?

He remembers Yondu’s last words, his cold hand on his cheek and the sheer relief in Gamora’s eyes right before he had passed out, her worried voice floating clouds.

 

 

 

The last time, the planet is desolated. His fingers curl around a trigger and he presses it into the head of a man who tortured and killed millions of people, but in that moment, he doesn't care. Maybe he'd died back in the ship, when Gamora was soft and alive in his arms and whispered that he had to promise, and he had. Maybe he'd died when he'd pressed that barrel into her chest and she'd whispered how much she'd loved him and it was covered by an ugly laugh. Maybe he’d died as she cried out, the darkness swallowing her and his own loose finger on the trigger of a gun unable to aim true to the one thing she had asked of him.

He remembers their dances, their kisses, their legs tangled in blankets and late night whisperings of voices and skin, remembers her eyes and the slope of her body when she’d pressed it against his in desperation and promise.

So when he's free, the tyrant, Peter Quill does not struggle. He hears the snap of the fingers, even from Thanos' place on Earth and closes his eyes. Drax and Mantis have already withered away, whisked away by the wind. The man in the cloak is also already gone and the armored man rocks back forth with ashes between his fingertips. He does not know if the ashes are of his son.

He does not know where Rocket and Groot are but as he closes his eyes and accepts that he will die without knowing where Gamora is laid to rest, violently, he hopes they're safe.

 

 

 

The last time Gamora dies, she is not surrounded by her friends, granted her dying wish. A barrel against the beat of her heart does not hurt like the clamp around her wrist, the wind in her hair. She can see the ground, see the terrifying end to a story she'd just barely begun and she closes her eyes.

She is no stranger to death. She dies when she’s ripped from her mother’s arms, screaming, and a double-sided blade with a jewel of blood is placed into her palm. She dies when she wraps her pinky around his glove, when she spits blood and doesn’t pull her punches. She dies when she doesn’t wince at the agonizing screams of her sister as she’s pulled apart piece by piece, a pawn in the tyrant’s game and she will not lose.

 

 

 

Maybe in her last moments, she does not think of her fall. Maybe in her last moments, she thinks of a different one - one like a seed from a tree Peter had once described, one from which he had once made wings out of for a hurt bumblebee. She thinks of his hand in hers, the whispering of lips across lips and fingertips tracing, doomed to never find. She remembers the morning before all of this, before the wreckage of the ship, of his eyes searching hers and the urgent press of lips that she had sealed her own fate with.

 

She is falling, drifting and unaccepting, slowly and softly, utterly and totally.

 

Here is death, here is life, and for the first time, she is not afraid.

**Author's Note:**

> I'M SORRY FOR THIS OKAY BLAME JO I'VE BEEN HAVING FEELINGS ABOUT THESE TWO SINCE I SAW IT FOR THE FIRST, AND THEN THE SECOND TIME, AND SHE'S THE ONE THAT INSPIRED THIS.
> 
> I LOVE PAIN AND SUFFERING THANKS MARVEL.


End file.
